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Couple Comments: COAL OIL GAS//NONE SHALL PASS! This was awesome. 125 folks in boats, 600+ on the bridge and a huge banner drop.

This was an inspiring day of action. It refreshed me, for the long long road ahead. Thanks to everyone who organized this, & who showed up & took part, & who will act & act & act, & who will, in the words of the chant, "Stand Up! Fight Back!"

The sediments and bottom water beneath the world's shallow oceans and lakes contain vast amounts of greenhouse gases: methane hydrates and methane clathrates (see Figure 1). In particular methane is concentrated in Arctic permafrost where the accumulation of organic matter in frozen soils covers about 24% of northern hemisphere continents (see Figure 2a) and is estimated to contain more than 900 billion tons of carbon.

On the evening of July 26, 2013, Camp Cascadia - the ongoing Friday night occupation of Mt. Tabor - hosted a public occupation of Mt. Tabor, in the name of fighting EPA Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule (LT2). Frequent honks and screams of "Thank yoooooooooouuuuu!!!" from passing cars proved to be a supportive, albeit disruptive, occurrence. Though occasionally drowned out by well-intended but bro-ish hoots and hollers emanating from 60th Avenue, the 35 citizens who attended the occupation discussed a wide array of issues.

We waited and waited and about 0900 the police approached and Jim announced he would not move voluntarily and I just said, "I'm with Jim." I had my USS Independence hat on and a jacket that says, Navy and Peace?Ha! The police did not want to arrest two old guys who were willing to give up some of their liberties so that others have a chance at what we once knew as "Democracy."

So, off we went to the big house, the justice center for processing and booking, my wife did not know I was going to push the issue, so she was not going to be happy. We were allowed to walk with the two police who were friendly and professional and very uncomfortable about arresting us. We were taken inside the entrance and told to wait on a bench and the police would get things started inside and be out in a few minutes. After about an hour we were given some bottled water and told to wait. We waited and were not handcuffed, could walk out anytime we wanted, it was a strange arrest. I was watching my oxygen and it was getting near the red zone and that is not good...

Camp Cascadia assembles every Friday at 5:00pm and disbands at 10:59pm until our one simple demand is met: Mayor Charlie Hales, formally ask Senator Merkly and Representative Blumenauer to petition the EPA, on behalf of our city, for the LT2 Waiver.

As the people from Portland, who live here and who love this place and our beautiful city, we ask all who attend this public demonstration to respect Mt. Tabor and the surrounding land. This is our commons.

To kick things off, at 7:00pm this evening (Monday) is the Port of Vancouver Public Hearing at the Port of Vancouver administrative building, 3103 NW Lower River Road, Vancouver WA 98660.

On Tuesday 7/23, community members have the opportunity to further educate themselves on environmental issues at the Fossil Fuel Export Forum from 6:30-8:30pm, at the Leaven Community Center at 5431 NE 20th Ave. (X Killingsworth) in Portland.

KBOO Community Radio 90.7 will be featuring Climate Updates on Wednesday 7/24, from 11:00am-noon during the program Recovery Zone. The program will inform listeners about various issues pertaining to the environment, including: planned NW fossil fuel terminals

On Thursday 7/25 at 5:30pm will be the Funeral March to Bury Big Oil, until Big Oil and Keystone are laid to rest at 7:30pm. The march begins at the intersection of NE 30th Ave & NE Alberta, Portland 97211. Portland's LoveBomb Go-Go Marching Band will lead the parade, and anti-Keystone XL signs as well as endangered species puppets will be making appearances.

Saturday 7/27 is Summer Heat NW- Columbia River Climate Action. As Big Coal, Oil, and Gas aim to transform the NW coastline from Oregon up to Alaska into a vast fossil fuel corridor with over 15 proposed terminals, folks will come together on this day for some family-friendly action

Hundreds of people showed up yesterday, July 14, at a rally and march to express their grief at the murder of another Black teenager, Trayvon Martin, and the verdict that acquitted his murderer, George Zimmerman. Ironically, Zimmerman's declaration "the assholes always get away" ended up applying to his acquittal. This case is evidence that in America, white supremacists/racists are still able to attack and kill people of color with impunity. Black Americans are not the only target; Mexicans have been murdered trying to cross the border by vigilante groups, and Muslims or people who look like "Arabs" have been attacked for years. I wish thousands more had shown up to protest these racist attacks and the injustices caused by institutionalized racism.

Ongoing high-profile strikes and lockouts affecting machinists on Swan Island and dockworkers at nearby ports offer a magnificent opportunity, today in the Portland-Vancouver metro region, to reinvigorate the local labor movement and our overall society.

It doesn't take a huge leap of imagination or a degree in labor law to realize that every union in the region, police and fire workers included, needs to send solidarity teams to bolster the picket lines of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (I.A.M.A.W.) outside the Daimler Trucks North America facility on N. Basin Ave. and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (I.L.W.U.) at the United Grain Corp. facility at the Port of Vancouver.

Every day since July 1, I've biked and walked past the picket line manned by only a handful of I.A.M.A.W. strikers on Swan Island, stopping to chat and offer my wholehearted support while arriving at and leaving from my nearby low wage, no benefit, nonunionized security day job.

What I want to know is where are the Teamsters, where is the Service Employees International Union, where are the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, where are the American Federation of Teachers, where are the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, where is the American Postal Workers Union, where is the Oregon Nurses Association, where is the Amalgamated Transit Union, and where, oh where are the Industrial Workers of the World?

"An injury to one is an injury to all" remains as true today as when the iconic rallying cry of the militant I.W.W. Wobblies was coined in the 1920's.

There should be dozens, hundreds, of union members walking the picket lines in sympathy with their activist brothers and sisters to clearly show management officials that Cascadia workers are finally getting off their collective knees to stand up and demand better pay and benefits after years of givebacks and economic stagnation.

MONDAY JULY 15 - 6:00PM Rally for Abortion rights in solidarity with the women of Texas Pioneer Square - Portland

The nation stands at the edge of a historic reversal. Hard won gains of the women's rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s are about to be turned back with devastating results for women across the country. Abortion, already a barely accessible right for most women, is now being made extinct as conservative politicians attempt to press their advantage in certain states in an opportunistic fashion.

But the problem we face is deeper. In Texas, the legislature has used every legal (and some illegal) trick in the book to make sure that the pro-choice majority is not heard. The current legislation under consideration represents some of the most draconian limits on abortion rights ever. And instead of allowing normal democratic procedures to resolve the issue, the legislature has relied on a rigged process to force the bill through. A few examples are worth mention: every procedural objection that was made to Wendy Davis's historic filibuster; the refusal to hold state-wide hearings to allow affected communities to testify about the consequences of the legislation; the intentional misreporting of how many people testified in opposition to the legislation; the years of gerrymandering which make it nearly impossible for the legislature to reflect the real wishes of the population; the organizing of "special sessions" to push through legislation.

The current legislation is too important to allow these deficits in the democratic process to go unchallenged. The bills in Texas would close down the overwhelming majority of clinics which provide abortions and thereby eliminate all of the ancillary services those clinics also provide -STD testing, family planning, health care. That some of these clinics are also the only places where low-income, people of color, and LGBTQ individuals are able to get health services means that this legislation will disproportionately impact the most vulnerable members of society.

On June 20, Oregon's Portland City Council unanimously voted to approve a budget that had been one of the most grassroots-contested examples of austerity in recent memory.

Weeks earlier, in a vote to approve the framework of this budget on May 29, the City Council's long-maintained show of consensus was broken when Commissioner Amanda Fritz voted "No." (More on her vote later). However, by the final budget vote last Thursday she had been compelled to change her mind.

How has the 2013 budget developed? When the Portland Budget process began several months ago, newly elected Mayor Charlie Hales announced a $25 million deficit in the city's General Fund. Each bureau was told to submit budgets with 10 percent cuts, signaling Hales's determination to oversee mass lay-offs and the slashing or elimination of essential programs that many Portlanders have come to rely on.

[...]

So what worked in Portland to move things towards a better outcome? For starters, Mayor Hales and the City Council's pursuit of austerity was met with a public outpouring of opposition at public budget hearings. The resistance culminated on April 11 when over 400 protesting participants surprised the City Council and overwhelmed their staff. Attending were members of the Metropolitan Youth Commission, Laborers International Local 483, Portland Community College, Friends of Trees, Portland Safety Net, SUN Schools, Eastside Action Plan, Elders in Action, AFSCME Local 189, and numerous others. They stunned the City Council with emotional and at times confrontational testimony. Many dressed in red to show solidarity and carried an array of signs in defense of threatened social programs.

Right now, Walmart workers are currently going out on strike over unfair labor practises. On June 7th hundreds of them will be carvanning from every corner of the country to Bentonville, Arkansas for Walmart's Annual Shareholders Meeting.

Walmart associates will call on Walmart board members and shareholders to address poverty wages, health care, retaliation against workers and scheduling that hurts workers, customers and the economy.

Over 100 protesters [and] supporters assembled in Portland outside of the SE Portland Walmart store for speeches and chants as they rallied for workers rights in solidarity with the UFCW local 55, as well with all [retail] laborers and their fellow workers who were currently protesting at [inside] the Walmart Board Meeting in Arkansas.

Some folks went inside the PDX store with Thank You | Information cards to hand to the workers.

"Postal truckers, mail handlers and mail processing clerks are losing their jobs to profiteering, private corporations," declared Jamie Partridge, a retired letter carrier who vowed to join a civil disobedience action Saturday morning, June 15th at the Portland Air Cargo Center. "We protest the privatization of the public postal service. We oppose the destruction of family wage, union jobs and the delay of the people's mail. We intend to disrupt this attack on our communities."

On May 25th, activists around the world will unite to 'March Against Monsanto.' The event will begin at 11am Pacific time in US cities. Portlanders will begin the event in Holladay Park and march peacefully through the Lloyd District Neighborhood. Area community members are coming together via Facebook to join in the effort, exercise their First Amendment rights and bring awareness to the growing controversy over ethical concerns surrounding the political influence of the multinational biotech corporation Monsanto and the safety of the genetically modified foods it produces.

Thank you all so very much for your concern for the well being of not just yourself but the rest of the world. If you would like to volunteer, please send an email to marchagainstmonsantopdx@gmail.com. Again, thank you so very much!

Guantanamo Hunger Strike/Vigil
Begins May 16th at 3:00 PM in front of Portland City Hall

(Look for a large colorful banner and people wearing prison-style orange jumpsuits.)

Seventy-one-year-old S. Brian Willson, a Viet Nam veteran member of Veterans For Peace, Portland Chapter 72, beginning Sunday, May 12 reduced his food intake by more than 85 percent, fasting on 300 calories a day in solidarity with the 130 uncharged Guantanamo prisoner hunger strikers now in deteriorating health, many of whom are being force-fed. Willson, a trained lawyer and criminologist, anti-war activist and author, lives by the mantra: "We are not worth more; They are not worth less." He joins 65-year-old grandmother Diane Wilson, a fifth-generation Texas shrimper, anti-war activist and author, who began an open-ended, water-only fast on May 1 outside the White House, and intends to fast until the prisoners are freed. There are more than 1,200 people around the country participating in a rolling hunger strike to bring attention to the plight of the fasting prisoners at Guantanamo, who have been illegally detained for over ten years with little recourse. May 16 is the 100th day of the hunger strike. The hunger strike/fast demands President Obama take immediate action to close the prison and release the prisoners. [...]

A total 166 prisoners from 25 countries remain housed in the U.S.-constructed and operated gulag (2002) at Guantanamo, located on Cuban soil without Cuba's permission. [...]

The Portland Chapter of the Social Welfare Action Alliance and the Portland State University School of Social Work are holding their third Community Based Practice Conference "Voices on the Ground." This year's theme is Resistance and Resilience.The event is being held Saturday, June 1st at PSU School of Social Work

On Saturday, June 1st, 2013 at Portland State University's School of Social Work, a one-day conference will be held on the theme: ?"Voices on the Ground: Resistance and Resilience"

Hosts of this event include:? School of Social Work, Portland State University (Community-Based Practice Concentration)? Social Welfare Action Alliance - Portland Chapter

This third annual gathering seeks to build a network of community-oriented practitioners, and to help catalyze and consolidate community social work in the region. All are invited to attend and participate, including human service workers, activists, service users, students, academics, and other allies.

This year our theme is "Resistance and Resilience", and we are organizing around the focus areas of Human Rights, Criminalization, Revolutionary Tools and Margin to Center:

We are very proud to announce our keynote speaker, Ethel Long-Scott! Registration information available on the conference website: http://tinyurl.com/voicesontheground. While this is a fee-based event, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.